PROCEEDINGS OF 

MEETING IN MEMORY 

OF 

Theodore Roosevelt 

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE 
PHILADELPHIA 



Sunday, February 9th, 1919 



PROCEEDINGS OF 

MEETING IN MEMORY 

OF 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Metropolitan Opera House 
Philadelphia 



^ 



SUNDAY. FEBRUARY 9, 1919 



ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL MEETING 

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA 
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1919. 2.30 P. M. 



The meeting was opened by the "Star-Spangled Banner," 
played by the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the leadership of 
Dr. Leopold Stokowski. 

The meeting was called to order by Thomas Robins, Esq., 
representing the Committee on Arrangements, in the follow- 
ing words : 

"As is fitting upon an occasion of such deep interest to 
every member of the community, the Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania will preside over this meeting. He needs no introduc- 
tion from me to this audience." 

Upon assuming the chair Governor Sproul called upon 
the Right Reverend Thomas J. Garland, Suffragan Bishop of 
Pennsylvania, for the invocation. 

INVOCATION 

God of our fathers, for the good examples of all Thy 
servants who have finished their course in faith, and especially 
of him whom we today commemorate, we praise Thee. May 
the memory of his unfailing love of justice and righteousness, 
his steadfast devotion to the highest interests of our nation, 
his unceasing labor for the welfare of humanity and his abid- 
ing faith and consecration to Thy service be an inspiration 
to us and to all future generations, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra played the Allegretto from 
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. 



ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR SPROUL 

We are met today to do honor to one of the great figures 
of our republic, one of the outstanding factors of our national 
life. It is indeed proper that we should do this, and the great 
outpouring of people here is a tribute not only to him in whose 
memory we are gathered but to our national ideals for which 
he stood pre-eminently. All over this wonderful land today 
similar meetings are being held, and I regard it as a high 
privilege to have the opportunity of participating in this occa- 
sion here at home. 

It speaks much for the respect and affection in which 
Theodore Roosevelt was held that such a great number of 
our people have come here today to show their feelings toward 
him, weeks after his sudden passing had shocked us, and 
after the immediate emotions of surprise and grief have been 
to some extent allayed by the great healer, Time. 

But he was such an unusual character in life and action! 
Some one says he was the typical American. That does not 
express it truthfully — he was not of a type — there was no 
other of his kind, nor has there been. He was the ideal 
American ! His public service was characterized by a devo- 
tion to duty, and enthusiasm for fight and an administrative 
capacity unequalled in combination. Strong, self-reliant and 
dominant, he never feared being overshadowed and called 
about him the strongest men he could find to be his associates 
in the government. An idealist, he did not soar in the mists 
of the unattainable, but he kept his purposes on earth where 
the people live whom he delighted to serve, and his work was 
always intensely practical in its plans and results. 

He walked with kings, but never lost the common touch. 
As a man, virile, vital, courageous, he was peerless. 

His service to the nation as a political leader and as 
President is monumental, but the greatest service he ren- 
dered — and no man has rendered greater — was as a private 
citizen, in the last three years of his life, when he called to 
our people of their danger and aroused the nation to action 



to save the world for civilization. I verily believe that in so 
doing he first saved this republic. 

His passing now is a national calamity, when his voice, 
his leadership, his splendid patriotism, are so much needed to 
guide us in a time of vacillation and lack of purpose. His 
mortal being gone beyond, his spirit and the lessons of his 
life will remain with us, a light in darkness, a guide in 
uncertainty. 

Governor Sproul then read the following messages to the 
meeting: 

I am obliged to inform you and your committee of my 
inability to be with you Sunday afternoon, although it goes 
very much against the grain. Mr. Roosevelt was a part of 
my being, and as such, his memory will live in my heart for 
the rest of my days. 

Kindly accept my sincere and heartfelt apology for this 
great disappointment to both you and me. 

J. J. CURRAN. 

I have your cordial invitation of the 3rd instant to at- 
tend the Roosevelt Memorial Meeting at the Metropolitan 
Opera House, in Philadelphia, on February 9th. I regret that 
I cannot be present at the meeting in Philadelphia, as I shall 
attend the joint meeting of both Houses of Congress, held to 
pay tribute to the memory of Colonel Roosevelt, on the same 
date. I feel that the official meeting in Washington is the 
fitting one for me to attend to pay my tribute of respect for 
the high character of Colonel Roosevelt and his great service 
to the American people. 

Boies Penrose. 

I regret exceedingly that I cannot be with you on the 9th, 
but am to make an address at the memorial service at Kansas 
City on that date. 

Theodore Roosevelt's death has brought to many thou- 
sands a feeling of personal sorrow, and to all Americans a 
sense of great and irreparable loss to our country in this great 
crisis. 



We have lost the great leader. Theodore Roosevelt's life 
was one of service for country, for humanity and for right as 
he saw it. If he feared anything, it was duty undone. 

Honefft, upstanding, God-fearing, a man of vision, of wide 
experience, with a breadth of human sympathy which em- 
braced all races, all creeds and all lands, he was easily the 
most inspiring and hence the most dominant figure in Ameri- 
can life since Abraham Lincoln. 

He is dead, but his influence lives after him. In the ex- 
ample of his life and work, in his ideals, we shall ever find 
inspiration for patriotic effort and incentive to high endeavor. 

He loved the strenuous life, with its fierce struggles. He 
knew that words alone are not sufficient, and that at times 
we must meet the organized forces of wrong with the disci- 
plined strength of right. 

He loved nature and the wild places of the world, the 
birds and animals, and he understood these as few do. He 
had a clean soul. He loved home, family and friends, and, 
above all, his country. 

In war he oflfered his life freely for his country ; his sons 
went into the world war with his blessing. Always thought- 
ful of those under him and appreciative of the humblest serv- 
ice, he had the personal affection and devotion of thousands. 

True patriot, best type of American, such was Theodore 
Roosevelt. His spirit will march in the van of our armies in 
war and strengthen our hearts in the hour of darkness and 
danger. 

Leonard Wood. 



The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was then sung by 
Mr. Noah H. Swayne, 2nd, accompanied by the Philadelphia 
Orchestra. The Orpheus Club and the audience joining in 
the chorus. 



ADDRESS BY THE HON. GIFFORD PINCHOT 

"We who loved Roosevelt have not lost him. The quali- 
ties we treasured in him, his loyalty, his genial kindness, his 
unwearied thoughtfulness for others, the generosity which 
made him prefer his friends in honor to himself, his tenderness 
with children, his quick delight in living, and the firm sound- 
ness of his life's foundations, are potent with us yet. 

"The broad human sympathy which bound to him the mil- 
lions who never saw his face, his clean courage and self-for- 
getful devotion to his country, the tremendous sanity of his 
grasp on the problems of the nation and the world, and the 
superb simplicity and directness of his life and thought still 
live as the inspiration and the basis for the new and better 
world which is to come. 

"The people loved Roosevelt because he was like them. 
In him the common qualities were lifted to a higher tension 
and a greater power, but they were still the same. What he 
did plain men understood and would have liked to do. The 
people loved him because his thoughts, though loftier, were 
yet within their reach, and his motives were always clear in 
their sight. They knew his purposes were always right. To 
millions he was the image of their better selves. 

"Roosevelt was the greatest preacher of righteousness in 
modern times. Deeply religious beneath the surface, he made 
right living seem the natural thing, and there was no man 
beyond the reach of his preaching and example. In the sight 
of all men, he lived the things he taught, and millions followed 
him because he was the clear exemplar of his teaching. 

"Unless we may except his conservation policies, Roose- 
velt's greatest service during his presidency was the inspira- 
tion he gave young men. To them he was the leader in all 
they hoped to be and do for the common good. The genera- 
tion which was entering manhood while he was President will 
carry with it to the grave the impress of his leadership and 
personality. 

"To the boys of America he was all they hoped to be — a 
hunter, a rider, a sportsman, eager for the tang of danger, 

7 



keen and confident, and utterly unafraid. There was no part 
of his example but was good for boys to follow. Roosevelt, 
half boy till his life's end, yet the manliest of men, of a fine- 
ness his best friends best understood, was their ideal, and will 
not cease to be because he has passed on. 

"To him the unforgivable sin, and there was but one, was 
betrayal of the interests of his country. The man who sinned 
that sin he neither forgave nor forgot. For opposition to him- 
self he cared little ; enemies he had in plenty, but they cast no 
shadow on his soul. He was a gallant and a cheerful fighter, 
willing, as he often said, to be beaten for any cause that was 
worth fighting for, and whether in defeat or victory, never 
unbalanced and never dismayed. 

"Roosevelt lived intensely in his family life. The doer 
of great things himself, and the occasion of great accomplish- 
ment in others, what he did was not done alone. It is but 
right that we should recognize the part played by the strong 
and gentle, wise and loving woman, whose hand was so rarely 
seen, yet still more rarely absent, in all that was best in her 
great husband's finest living and most memorable achieve- 
ments. 

"The greatest of executives, he informed the machinery 
of government with the flame of his own spirit. He was 
his own hardest taskmaster, and always unwilling to ask of 
any man the thing he was not ready tc do himself. He was 
our leader because he was the better man. He worked more 
hours, at higher speed, with wider vision. He trusted us, and 
gave each man his head. Always eager to recognize good 
work and give due credit for it, always ready with an excuse 
for the man who honestly tried and failed, he had nothing but 
scorn and contempt for the man who never tried at all. 

"Filled with the joy and the spice of living, afraid neither 
of life nor of death, thankful for sunshine or rain, never sorry 
for himself, never asking odds of any man or any situation, he 
used the powers he had as only his great soul could use them 
— powers seldom, if ever, before assembled in one individual, 
but nearly all of them duplicated, one here, one there, within 



the knowledge of us all. It was the use his soul made of his 
body and his mind that was the essence of his greatness. 

"The greatest of his victories was his last, his victory 
over the indifference of a people long misled. He was the 
first to see the need for it. To gain it he seemed to throw 
away his future. In the event he won results and earned a 
name which will live while the knowledge of America's part 
in the great war still endures. 

"He was the leader of the people because his courage and 
his soundness made him so. More than any man of his time, 
he was loved by those who ought to love him, and hated by 
those who ought to hate him. His ideals, his purposes, his 
points of view, his hostilities, and his enthusiasms were such 
as every man could entertain and understand. It was only in 
the application of them that he rose to heights beyond the 
reach of all the rest of us. 

"What explains his power? Life is the answer. Life at 
its warmest and fullest and freest, at its utmost in vigor, at 
its sanest in purpose and restraint, at its cleanest and clearest 
— life tremendous in volume, unbounded in scope, yet con- 
trolled and guided with a disciplined power which made him, 
as few men have ever been, the captain of his soul. 

"Alert, glad, without meanness and without fear, free 
from arrogance and affectation, with few hesitations and few 
regrets, slow to promise but ardent to perform, delighting in 
difficulties, welcoming danger, sensitive to the touch of every 
phase of human existence, yet dominated by standards more 
severely set for himself than for any others, sustained by a 
breadth of knowledge and of sympathy, and by an endurance, 
both physical and mental, which belonged to him alone, 
Roosevelt lived with a completeness that lesser men can never 
know. 

"In Roosevelt above all the men of his time the promise 
of the Master w^as fulfilled : T came that ye might have life, 
and that ye might have it more abundantly'." 

The Philadelphia Orchestra played the Scherzo and 
Allegro from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. 



ADDRESS BY GEORGE WHARTON PEPPER, ESQ. 

"Theodore Roosevelt stands out in strong relief against 
the evening sky. It is an heroic figure. He can be seen from 
everywhere. 

"Today we are permitted to voice our estimates of him, 
but it is hard to find the right words in which to describe the 
whole man — his body, his mind and his spirit. 

"The body was certainly a tireless body. 

"He began as an asthmatic, delicate boy, carried at night 
in his father's arms because if the lad were laid down he could 
not breathe. By will power and sheer grit, he built himself 
up to be the kind of man to whom fierce physical exertion was 
an unmixed delight. He could not allow a little thing like an 
assassin's bullet to interrupt a public speech. At the time of 
life when most strong men are relaxing a bit and seeking well- 
earned repose, he was true to type and plunged into African 
jungles and into the unexplored recesses of a southern conti- 
nent. Up to the very end, he drove that massive frame re- 
lentlessly. If death had not crept upon him in his sleep, I 
doubt if death itself could ever have mastered him. 

"His mind was a capacious mind. 

"It was stored with exact and varied information. He 
could meet on equal terms specialists in most departments of 
human learning. Unlike some of the specialists, he possessed 
the blessed gift of practical common sense, which made his 
vast equipment always ready for instant and eflFective use. 
His books are a record of rich and fruitful literary activity. 
His conversation was sometimes exasperating to those who 
wished to show how much they knew, but always delightful 
to those who were willing to listen and to learn. 

"And surely his spirit was unquenchable. There has 
been nothing like it in our time. No task daunted him. Noth- 
ing could discourage him. Nobody could down him. If he 
was beaten, he never knew it. With reverent affection, let us 
even doubt whether he admits that he is dead. 

"And I am not prepared to admit it myself. 

10 



"A world without Theodore Roosevelt would be too stale, 
too flat, too unprofitable and too uninteresting- to live in. He 
must live on ! Not merely as a memory, but as a continuing 
and a vitalizing force. 

"If there were others to take his place, we might breathe a 
prayer over his grave and let him rest in peace. But there is 
nobody like him. The names of some surviving public men 
are quite meaningless. 'Theodore' means 'the gift of God.' 
We cannot spare him ! He must come back to us ! 

"Think of some of the ways in which we need him. 

"We need him to guide our thoughts and footsteps in 
approaching the solution of our social and industrial problems. 
Almost alone among American public men of affluence and 
privilege Theodore Roosevelt was able to enter into the inner 
consciousness of the man who toils with his hands and to 
understand both his legitimate needs and his occasionally 
illegitimate desires. 

"Long ago, Theodore Roosevelt perceived that special 
privilege must be diluted for the safety of the common weal. 
He pointed out that unless the world was made happier for 
the many, the many would make it an extremely unhappy 
place for the few. But he was never a demagogue. He never 
drifted with the crowd or sought to be popular with the mob. 
He stood strongly for authority and he sternly rebuked all 
lawlessness. 

"When organized covetousness and transfigured crime 
first masqueraded under a high-sounding Russian name, some 
of our so-called statesmen coquetted with the monster and 
plumed themselves upon their pure democracy. Not so the 
Colonel. He knew a snake when he saw it and his heel was 
always prompt to bruise its head. We need his courage and 
we miss that heel. 

"We need him, too, to remind us that a democracy must 
provide for its own safety instead of relying upon protection 
guaranteed by others. The Colonel understood perfectly well, 
none better, that the only protection which contents a strong 

11 



man is self-protection. Some people assert that safety is of 
primary importance. Not so. A more essential thing is the 
self-development which is the price of safety. 

"The Colonel advocated a reasonable amount of universal 
and compulsory military training under democratic conditions, 
not merely to make the country safe and to keep it free, but to 
make it possible for our manhood to survive its safety and to 
profit by its freedom. Happily the Colonel's voice will always 
be loud enough to drown the song of those sexless sirens who 
infest the shoals of pacifism. 

"Most of all we shall need the Colonel's robust common 
sense when at last we are informed of the world peace pro- 
posals and are called upon either to accept or reject them. 

"Among all the empty paragraphs, the senseless sen- 
tences and the windy words that have ever been uttered, those 
in which the proceedings of the peace conference have been 
reported to us must be awarded an exalted place. If the con- 
ferees could be blessed by the Colonel's presence among them, 
the result of their deliberations might disappoint the aspira- 
tions of dreamy idealism but would be certain to square with 
the relentless facts of a world that is highly interesting, but 
persistently naughty. 

"Yes, we as a people, have sore need of the Colonel for 
all these reasons and for many others. 

"But not only collectively do we need him. We need him 
also as individuals. When we look into our own hearts, we 
find that we shall have sustained a personal loss if we suffer 
the Colonel to leave us. You and I need him as a factor in 
our daily lives. We have more energy when the Colonel 
is about. We are less content to submit to injustice, less 
appalled by obstacles in the path of progress. With the 
Colonel near us, we are braver men and finer women. Where 
the Colonel leads we are sure of the direction in which we 
are moving. When he gives commands, we are not in doubt 
about our objective. If we have sons who have added luster 
to our name, we are aware that the Colonel wants to shake 

12 



hands with us with the grip of the man who knows how it 
feels. If in battle we have lost a boy who is dear to us, we are 
eager to grasp the Colonel's hand because we are sure that in 
his touch will be manly sympathy and comfortable strength. 

"Happily, it will not be difficult to keep him with us. 
Theodore Roosevelt alive is easily conceived of. Theodore 
Roosevelt dead is altogether unthinkable. Such a man 
strengthens our belief in immortality. He is to us an assur- 
ance that the slight physical change called death is merely an 
incident in the endless life of the strong and the brave. There- 
fore his passing must not be an occasion of sorrow. He has 
but gone to that front from which nobody would dare to hold 
him back. It is in our power to make him glad that for us he 
spent himself so freely. Let us try, my friends, to be worthy 
of his welcome when we meet him again." 

The Orpheus Club, under the leadership of Mr. Arthur B. 
Woodruff, then sang "The Long Day Closes" by Sir Arthur 
S. Sullivan. 



13 



ADDRESS BY THE HON. JAMES M. BECK 

My Fellow Citizens : 

A little more than a month ago a wave of sorrow swept 
through an already mourning world like the sigh of the night 
wind in a sombre forest. The foremost man of this generation 
had gone, and by the irony of Fate, when he was most needed. 
In this fateful hour of humanity, when the paralysis of fear and 
the psychosis of hypocrisy has stricken so many responsible 
statesmen in all nations, the world had imperative need of 
his integrity of purpose, purity of mind, unselfishness of spirit, 
tolerant sympathy and heroic fortitude. 

No eulogium that can be uttered, no memorial that we 
could fashion with our hands, could be as eloquent as the 
deep grief that, on the sixth of January united in common 
sympathy all classes, races and creeds of men. It recalled the 
tribute that Motley paid to William of Orange: 

"While he lived he was the guiding star of a whole brave 
nation and when he died, the little children cried in the 
streets." 

His last formal message to his fellow-men was his book, 
"The Great Adventure." Significantly and prophetically he 
thus began it: 

"Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die, and 
none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and 
the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same 
Great Adventure." 

His great adventure ended when, after working the last 
night of his life he fell asleep liked a tired boy, after a full day 
of work and play. He had had the joy of life as few men ever 
had and had discharged the duty of life as truly as any man 
of our generation. He had been the "master of his fate" and 
the "captain of his soul." He had bravely steered it through 
storm and calm, by rock and shallow, with duty as his chart 
and public service as his north star. The journey had ended. 
Full freighted with honors and achievements, this dauntless 
soul had reached the haven, and the world paid him its best 
tribute, that of its tears. 

14 



I shall not venture upon any formal culogium, nor at- 
tempt to measure the relative greatness of the man. His 
record, which has been an open book to the eyes of the world 
for four decades, must be judged in its due jjerspcctivc of 
time and result. As well might a man judge llic architec- 
tural beauty of the Rheims Cathedral when standing in the 
shadow of its noble Gothic towers. To appreciate the sur- 
passing glory of this Gothic masterpiece, one must stand afar 
and see the sacred edifice in the glory of the sunlight. Simi- 
larly our children, and our children's children can better 
estimate Roosevelt's true place in our history than we can 
possibly do in this sad hour. Ordinarily it is rash to say 
upon the death of any man that his fame will endure. As the 
collective power of an infinitely complex civilization waxes, 
the individual wanes, and it becomes increasingly hazardous 
to place any man among the immortals before whom the 
generations of men ceaselessly file with their unending salu- 
tation, "We who are about to die, salute thee !" At rare 
intervals, however, a man will dominate his generation as a 
mountain peak rises above the foot hills, and his achieve- 
ments will be of such continuing influence that even a con- 
temporaneous judgment can say that the stream of time, 
which washes away the dissoluble substance of ordinary 
reputations, will leave intact these granite boulders, which not 
only are untouched by the swift current of time, but to some 
extent determine its course. 

We can safely affirm that he will remain for generations 
to come one of the most picturesque personalities that Ameri- 
can democracy with its' "career open to talents" has given to 
the w^orld. Like the favorite child of Shakespeare's fancy, 
Roosevelt was the "courtier, scholar, soldier." Like him he 
was 

"The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 

The observed of all observers." 

He was the most successful politician that his day and 

generation has produced in the original and nobler sense of 

that much abused w^ord. His versatility was such that he 

was the "Admirable Crichton" of our generation. In a meas- 

15 



ure he combined some of the qualities of the great immortals 
of our history. He had somewhat of Washington's mastery 
of men; somewhat of Hamilton's constructive genius; some- 
what of Jefferson's philosophic breadth and inspiring ideal- 
ism ; somewhat of Henry Clay's potent magnetism, and above 
all, he had Lincoln's profound sympathy with the inmost 
thoughts, the deepest feelings and the loftiest aspirations of 
the American people. He had Lincoln's gift of grasping the 
fundamental principles underlying any controversy and inter- 
preting them to the masses in convincing phrases. If his 
voluminous writings contain little that will belong to per- 
manent literature it is because he deliberately wrote for the 
day and for the immediate object, and his appeal was to the 
average man. Yet on occasion he could rise to lofty heights 
of eloquence, and his noble tribute to France, with which 
he ended his speech at the dinner of the Pennsylvania Society 
in 1917, is worthy of Lincoln himself. As Webster once said, 
the greatness of a speech depends upon the man, the sub- 
ject and the occasion. All three must concur in the making 
of an immortal message. Had Lincoln's speech at Gettys- 
burg been delivered at a public banquet it may be doubted 
whether it would have had such enduring and deserved repu- 
tation. The dead, over whose graves it was spoken, gave it 
something of its unequalled potency. Had Roosevelt's trib- 
ute to France been delivered at Verdun over the graves of 
the French dead, it would have become a classic. 

My purpose today is to pay the tribute of a friend rather 
than the formal eulogium of a public orator. Such would 
have been his wish. It is consonant with his desire to be 
buried with extreme simplicity. All his life he had lived in 
the white light of publicity. He had known the pomp, pride 
and circumstance of high official place and unequalled power. 
He was the best loved man of this generation in all the world. 
Wherever civilization existed the name of Roosevelt was 
honored as that of no statesman since Abraham Lincoln. He 
had appealed to the imagination of all classes — to the weak 
and the ignorant as well as to the great, the learned and the 
powerful. To the youth of this and other lands he was the 
Bayard of the New World, "without fear and without re- 

16 



proach." Of this general acclaim he could not have been un- 
conscious, and yet it was his wish, when death should end his 
activities, that his burial be marked with utmost simplicity. 
It was for this reason that of all his countless thousands of 
friends only a few hundred were privileged to stand by his 
open grave on that little knoll of ground which overlooked 
the great bay which he loved so well. That gathering was 
in itself emblematic of the attitude of the world, for it in- 
cluded men who in the storm and controversy of our times 
had been his foes. There were those present whom in the 
fierce controversies of this generation he had vigorously as- 
sailed and who had vehemently attacked him. There were 
men who had thwarted his aims, and whose aims he had 
thwarted. Yet all differences were forgotten in the common 
love for one whom all recognized as a prince of men. As I 
stood by the open grave I did not think of Roosevelt as the 
soldier, the orator, the author, the naturalist, the explorer, 
the statesman, the leader of men, or the former President of 
the greatest of republics. I could only think of him as a friend 
and brother in whom the elements were so mixed 
"That Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, 'This is a man'." 
Our sorrow was lessened by an exultant feeling of pride 
that he had fought the good fight, he had finished his course, 
he had kept the faith, and to him had come, as was his due, 
the crown of a great people's lasting appreciation. We did 
not say, "The king is dead," for we felt that the king still 
reigned in his true kingdom — the great heart of the Ameri- 
can people. 

On such an occasion a speaker, especially when he speaks 
as a friend, may pardonably be reminiscent. I wish to recall 
the first and the last time I ever saw Theodore Roosevelt. 
The first occasion was the burial of McKinley. As one of his 
official family I stood on the portico of the White House, and 
suddenly through the center of our group of mourners, the 
new President of the United States walked with his quick 
and decisive stride. He was then forty-three years of age, and 
the youngest man upon whom the duties of the great office 

17 



had fallen. These had come to him so suddenly as to give 
him less preparation than any of his predecessors. In one 
respect the call to the most onerous public service in the world 
had come to him at a fortunate time, for never before in 
American history was there such an era of good feeling as 
then prevailed. Prosperity, peace, and sympathy between 
class and class were everywhere abundant. The Spanish- 
American War had united the different sections of our coun- 
try as never before, and the administration of the beloved 
McKinley had been so wis'e and tactful that party divisions 
had almost ceased. Shortly before his death, McKinley had 
said with entire sincerity, "I can no longer be called the 
President of a party ; I am the President of the whole people." 
This, however, was but the calm that sometimes pre- 
cedes the storm — such a calm as existed in the early sum- 
mer of 1914, on the eve of the most seis'mic upheaval in his- 
tory. The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a 
profound change in our country and, indeed, in the world. 
Few then appreciated it, but, in fact, a great social revolution 
was then beginning, which is now reaching its climax, and it 
was destined to shake the very foundations of human society. 
Our nation, which had theretofore enjoyed a policy of so- 
'called "splendid isolation," could no longer escape the mighty 
current which, like the invisible Gulf Stream, was running 
through the nations and transforming human life. When the 
flag of our country was raised in the Orient, the star of em- 
pire had completed the circuit of the globe, and America, once 
the little Bethlehem of nations in which constitutional lib- 
erty had been cradled, had become, although men then vaguely 
saw it, the first power of the world. 

Who should guide the fiery courses of this mighty chariot 
of civilization? The reins were suddenly placed in the hands 
of Theodore Roosevelt. Marvelously he directed, for seven 
years, the course of that chariot. Few Presidents ever accom- 
plished more work of enduring usefulness than Roosevelt in 
the two terms of office in which he guided the mighty destinies 
of the American people. Conscious that the Federal Govern- 
ment had grown so great that the spoils system threatened the 

18 



perpetuity of our institutions, Roosevelt gave new vigor and 
authority to the movement for Civil Service Reform, with 
which he had been conspicuously identified from the begin- 
ning. Conscious that America was wasting like a prodigal 
its mighty resources, he developed most elTectively the move- 
ment for their conservation. For centuries men had dreamed 
of the possibility of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 
by the trans-Atlantic canal. With fiery energy, Roosevelt 
realized the dream by constructing the Panama Canal, which 
surely should bear his name as his perpetual monument. With 
fine prescience he saw the increasing complications of inter- 
national politics, and he bent his energies toward the work of 
preparedness, and the ability of our navy when the world war 
broke out, to take an immediate and a conspicuously useful 
part in the war at sea, was due in part to his forethought. 
His foreign policy won for this country a world-wide influ- 
ence such as it had never previously enjoyed. Then was seen 
the dawn of the day, long ago predicted by the English his- 
torian. Green, that the future destinies of mankind would be 
influenced, not alone on the banks of the Seine and the 
Thames, but along those of the Hudson and the Mississippi. 
Thus when the Russo-Japanese War threatened to destroy 
the integrity of China, it was to Roosevelt that the German 
Emperor turned to secure a restriction of the field of opera- 
tion. Again, when Japan and Russia had each reached the 
point of exhaustion, it was Roosevelt who brought them into 
friendly conference, and by his wise tact and skilful manage- 
ment brought about the Treaty of Portsmouth. His policy 
was the historic policy of America — "Peace, commerce, and 
honest friendship with all nations," but no American presi- 
dent ever was more swift to resent either an insult or a threat 
than Theodore Roosevelt. When the Moroccan freebooter 
captured Perdicaris, Roosevelt made but one demand, and 
that with a simplicity that even a Moroccan bandit could 
understand. He demanded either "Perdicaris alive, or Rai- 
suli dead." This swift vindication of American citizenship 
brought its immediate result. Nor did he show less firmness 
when dealing with the greatest military power in the world. 
When Germany, the great bully, had a controversy with little 

19 



Venezuela, Roosevelt demanded that it be referred to the 
arbitrament of The Hague Tribunal. The German Emperor 
curtly refused. Roosevelt promptly sent for the German Am- 
bassador and told him to advise His Imperial Master that 
unless he gave an assurance within ten days of his willingness 
to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey and the American fleet would 
sail for the coast of Venezuela. Some days later the German 
Ambassador returned and advised President Roosevelt that 
His Imperial Majesty still refused to arbitrate. Roosevelt, 
without hesitating a moment, calmly advised Baron HoUeben 
that new orders would be given to Admiral Dewey to sail 
without waiting for the expiration of the ten days. Within 
forty-eight hours the German Ambassador returned with the 
statement that His Imperial Majesty had decided to arbitrate, 
and thereupon, to lessen the humiliation and preserve good- 
will, Roosevelt tactfully, but somewhat sardonically, an- 
nounced that the German Emporer, consistent with his known 
advocacy of the principle of arbitration, had agreed to arbi- 
trate the question. 

It was not alone as a great administrator and foreign min- 
ister that Theodore Roosevelt in his double capacity of Presi- 
dent and prime minister shone conspicuously, but his greatest 
achievement was in the more difficult role of a reformer. It 
was in this capacity that he rendered his greatest service to 
the people whom he led to high achievement. The swift and 
enormous development of our material wealth by which the 
capital resources of our country had grown tenfold since 
Lincoln's time, and the destructive influence upon personal 
moral responsibility by the development of great corporate 
bodies, had resulted in a lower morality which foreshadowed 
the decay and ultimate destruction of the republic. Even if 
the submergence of personal morality in those useful and 
even necessary entities that we call "corporations" had not 
affected public morality and the standards of business life, 
yet it had created a money-power which seemed beyond pub- 
lic regulation or control, and seemed to many to threaten the 
life of the Republic itself. Undoubtedly there was much of 
hysteria in the agitation against the money-power, but who 

20 



can deny that when Roosevelt assailed the abuses and exces- 
sive power of corporate wealth, that he had good grounds for 
his action? When, for example, the chief trans-Atlantic rail- 
road carriers were united in the Northern Securities Company, 
and the domination of transportation, with its infinite power 
over all business opportunity and activity, passed into the 
hands of that great triumvirate of very able railroad operators 
— Harriman, Hill and Cassatt— it was not enough to say that 
these very great masters of transportation had no object other 
than the efficiency of transportation. Assuming that they 
would wisely exercise the power, yet the power to control the 
transportation of a vast continent was, in itself, a menace 
that could not be tolerated. Although Roosevelt was thus 
called upon to challenge a power to which the United States 
Bank of Jackson's time was as a pigmy to a giant, he never 
hesitated. He did not even consult the members of his Cabi- 
net, except his Attorney General. The formation of the 
Northern Securities Company was hardly announced when 
Roosevelt instructed his Attorney General to institute a suit 
to prevent the amalgamation. It is the greatest pride of my 
professional life that I was selected by Theodore Roosevelt 
and Attorney General Knox to argue the case before the 
Justices of the Circuit Court. Roosevelt also ended the great 
power of the railroad companies to build up one man's busi- 
ness and destroy another's, to give one community prosperity 
and another ruin by discrimination in railroad rates, and, in 
brief, he developed a Federal power over trade and commerce 
and a wise and conservative regulation of the problems of 
interstate trade and transportation, which have been of great 
and enduring value, even though the full advantage has not 
been reaped by reason of the intolerable delays of that cir- 
cumlocution-office, the Interstate Commerce Commission. 

Time does not permit me to discuss the many achieve- 
ments of Roosevelt's two administrations. It is enough to 
say that "tried by the arduous greatness of things done," and 
not merely promised, more was done of enduring value than 
in any administration since Lincoln's time. 

These were the tasks that fate had put upon the shoulders 



21 



of this young man whom I saw on the day of McKinley's 
funeral, cross:ing the portico of the White House. 

He accomplished them because in him was the finest 
equilibrium between the idealist and the practical man. Ideal- 
ism is as art — it is valueless without a practical technique, 
and Roosevelt had that technique in his mastery of men. His 
activity was almost superhuman. Well did John Morley say, 
when he last visited our country, that he had seen the two 
greatest energies in America — Niagara Falls and Theodore 
Roosevelt. The analogy was not altogether fanciful, for in 
Roosevelt's sympathies and activities there was something 
of the swift current of Niagara, and at times the currents of 
his soul, when lashed by the spirit of controversy, were as 
turbid as the rapids of Niagara. In such times he went to 
extremes of speech and action, which no one regretted more 
than he. He was not infallible. His capacity for accomplish- 
ing many and great things was due to his quick grasp of the 
essentials of any question and his marvelous capacity for a 
quick and accurate decision. Day after day in the White 
House he would see literally hundreds of men, coming on 
almost as many varied errands, and in most cases each of 
them got a swift decision — as swift as the answer that he gave 
the German Kaiser. Roosevelt disdained diplomacy or com- 
promise. His was a swift "yes" or "no" to those who sought 
his influence or favor. Neutrality on any question was ab- 
horrent to him. Had he been President when the Lusitania 
was sunk, the history of the world would have had, in this 
crisis, a very different story. Upon all questions he had a be- 
lief, and he rarely hesitated to express it with precision and 
emphasis. In all the controversies of our times his white 
plume, like that of Henry of Navarre, was in the forefront. 
He never sought to find safety in dodging or shirking. In all 
his forty years of public life he stood four-square to every wind 
that blew. Like Napoleon, whom he resembled in inexhaust- 
ible capacity for work and swiftness of decision, he necessarily 
made many great errors of judgment and action. To assume 
otherwise would be to attribute to him infallibility. 

32 



Now that the storms of controversy that surrounded him 
in life have spent their force, friend and foe alike will recog- 
nize that the world is richer for his having lived and is the 
poorer for his having died. 

The last time that I saw him was two weeks before his 
death. I had just returned from England, and I went to see 
him in the hospital where he had been for some weeks. For 
an hour and a half we talked over world events, and certainly 
he gave no indication that his extraordinary mental vigor had 
experienced the slightest abatement. He looked to the future 
with great hope. He had reason to look upon the last four 
years of his life with great satisfaction, for in no period of 
his career had he rendered a greater service than in the fate- 
ful period of the world war. He was a greater Roosevelt out 
of power than he had ever been in official place. Commencing 
a few months after the outbreak of the world war he had 
poured his whole soul in the work of developing a public 
sentiment that would hasten America's intervention in the 
greatest war in human history, as later he drove a sharp spur 
into the dilatory methods of our Government. He had cher- 
ished the high and noble ambition of himself taking part as 
a soldier in that war. He had given the most extraordinary 
proof of his personal following when he appealed to his 
friends, who were beyond the draft age, to join him in a 
volunteer army to proceed to France in the spirit of Lafayette, 
and as a result nearly 200,000 men had expressed their will- 
ingness and desire to follow Roosevelt to the death, if neces- 
sary. It was said of Roderick — "One blast upon his bugle 
horn were worth a thousand men." One appeal of Roosevelt 
had brought twice as many men to his standard as Meade 
commanded at Gettysburg or Napoleon at Waterloo. He 
spoke to me one day of his keen desire to go to the front as a 
soldier. He said, "I shall probably be killed, but how could 
I more fittingly end my career than by giving my life for 
this great cause?" He probably would have been killed, for 
Roosevelt could never have been anywhere but in the front 
line and where the fight was fiercest. Disappointed in this, 
the greatest ambition of his life, he yet made the greater sac- 

23 



rifice of sending his four boys to the front ; and his fine sense 
of duty was never better shown that when, having promised at 
a critical time to address his party at the Saratoga Conven- 
tion, the news came to him that one of his boys had been 
killed in France, the grief-stricken father submerged his pri- 
vate grief in a public duty ; even as in 1912, when he was shot 
by an assassin on his way to address a public audience, he 
insisted upon making his speech, and made it with the blood 
flowing from a fresh wound. No sorrow of his life ever 
equalled his poignant disappointment in being denied the op- 
portunity to fight for the cause of civilization "somewhere in 
France." 

I regard it as an inestimable privilege to have enjoyed 
this last hour with this very great man. It will always re- 
main with me as a great and sacred memory. 

We ran the whole gamut of national and international 
politics, and without ignoring the stupendous difficulties of 
the present crisis he faced the future with his characteristic 
buoyant and courageous optimism. Above all, his concern 
was for America, for he was first to last, and always, an 
American. The republic never had a more ardent son. 

When I parted from him it was with the same charming 
smile and cordial clasp of his hand that all who were privi- 
leged to come in contact with him received from this most 
human of human beings. 

"Alas, for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of 
a voice that is still." To me and to thousands of others it is 
an inexpressible sorrow that never again shall I enjoy the 
inspiration of that inspiring personality. 

The Chinese have a belief that every man has three 
spirits; the one descends with him into the grave and per- 
ishes forever; the second remains on earth and moves among 
men, and the third ascends to the celestial realms of the de- 
parted. This belief in a trinity of spirit is not without founda- 
tion. There is the spirit of personality, which dies with a 
man ; or at least with the generation that knew him in the 
flesh. No human records have revealed more than the 

24 



shadowy ghost of a dead man's personality. It "fades like a 
streak of morning cloud into the infinite azure of the past." 
Memory tries in vain to recall the intonation of the voice and 
the ineffable charm of the face. Thus it is with Roosevelt. 
A few will treasure as among their richest memories the 
never-to-be-forgotten recollection of the gracious hospitality 
of Sagamore Hill and the winning charm of its dominating 
spirit, but slowly the full vision will fade from memory. 
A grateful nation should, however, preserve this simple man- 
sion overlooking Oyster Bay, as it has Monticello and 
Mount Vernon. Each is a little hill and will radiate for 
generations to come something of the gracious personality 
who lived there, and to these hills future Americans will lift 
their eyes for continuing inspiration. 

The second spirit — that of Roosevelt's work — will live 
among men and continue its beneficent influence for centuries 
to come. He has joined the immortals of our history. It was 
said in the Arthurian legend that King Arthur sleeps at Ava- 
lon, but that he will come again if ever his country were in 
desperate need. The last picture of Burne-Jones represents 
the sleeping Arthur with his faithful servitor at his side, 
ready to blow the horn which in time of need would rouse 
the dead king from his dreamless sleep. Our King Arthur 
is not dead, and needs no blast of the trumpet to summon him 
to his country's aid. Generation after generation of Ameri- 
cans when confronted with some grave emergency, possibly 
involving honor or dishonor, will recall the inspiration of 
Roosevelt's inspiring patriotism and in that potent force he 
still lives. 

Faith tells us that the third and immortal spirit has 
ascended to the skies and joined the innumerable band of the 
just made perfect. Thither we need not seek to follow him, 
but must content ourselves with the saying, "Behold ! I show 
you a mystery !" in which death has no "sting" and the grave 
no "victory." 

This consoled us as we stood by his open grave, and saw 
his body lowered to its last resting place. We cannot believe 

25 



that a beneficent God Who in physical nature permits' nothing 
to be wasted should permit the utter destruction of such a 
soul. 

The snow had fallen on that morning of his burial. It 
was not whiter than his soul. I thought of the favorite child 
of Shakespeare's fancy — the sweet dreamer and gentle ideal- 
ist of Elsinore, and to Roosevelt's departed spirit the world 
could repeat Horatio's noble farewell to the dying Hamlet — 

"Good night, sweet prince, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." 

"America" was then sung by the Orpheus Club and audi- 
ence, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra. 

BENEDICTION BY THE 
RIGHT REV. THOMAS J. GARLAND 

We commit the interests of our dearest country to the 
protection of Almighty God and those that have the superin- 
tendence of them to His holy keeping, together with all those 
who shrink not from the joy of life and the duty of life, but 
who so live that they do not fear to die. The Lord bless us 
and keep us, the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be 
gracious unto us, the Lord lift up His countenance upon us 
and give us peace both now and evermore. 

In a darkened house Taps were blown by Malcom J. 
Williams and George A. Wilson, of the United States Navy. 

In concluding the meeting Governor Sproul said : 

"There has probably never been a memorial service from 
which men took so much hope, courage and devotion as from 
this. Let us all go from here resolved that this splendid life 
shall not have been lived in vain, but that Theodore Roose- 
velt's high principles and ideal shall always be a part of this 
republic." 



26 



CITIZENS' COMMITTEE, 
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL MEETING 



Clarence D. Antrim 
A. F. Angel 
Thos. F. Armstrong 
G. Douglass Bartlett 
John Hampton Barnes 

D. M. Barringer 
Walter F. Ballinger 
Charles A. Beach 
Edward F. Beale 
Rev. J. C. Beckett 
John C. Bell 
Francis B. Biddle 
Hon. James M. Beck 
James S. Benn 
Bishop Jos. F. Berry- 
Edward Bok 
Edward H. Bonsall 
Cyrus Borgner 
Francis M. Bracken 
Hon. J. Hay Brown 

Hon. Francis Shunk Brown 
Samuel B. Brown 
Rev. F. H. Butler 

E. G. Budd 
James Butterworth 
Hon. Joseph Buffington 
Alfred E. Burk 
James Burns 

Hon. John Cadwalader 
Robert Carson 
J. H. Calahan 
Juan V. Cayrasso 
Francis T. Chambers 
William J. Coane 
Dr. J. Solis Cohen 
George W. Coles 



Grcllet Collins 

Herman Collins 

Rev. Russell H. Conwell 

Morris L. Cooke 

K. M. Coolbaugh 

Hugh Creelman 

Samuel Crothers 

John J. Crout 

J. Howell Cummings 

Rev. Father J. J. Curran 

Samuel M. Curwen 

T. DeWitt Cuyler 

H. Horace Dawson 

Nathan H. Davis 

Martin Davis 

Thomas C. Davis 

William F. Deakyne 

Rev. Edwin Heyl Delk 

Frank E. DeLong 

James Dobson 

Robert D. Dripps 

John Dunlap 

Horace W. Easton 

Felix Eckerson 

Joseph Elias 

William S. Ellis 

Col. William J. Elliott 

John Thompson Emlen 

William H. Emhardt 

Powell Evans 

Com. A. Mershon Evans 

Albert Smith Faught 

Dr. Thomas H. Fenton 

Hon. Thomas D. Finletter 

John Fisler 

Hon. William Flinn 

27 



R. H. Foerderer 
Nathan T. Folwell 
Victor Fonteneau 
Richard H. Forster 
Charles F. Freihofer 
Jas. W. Fry 
Bishop T. J. Garland 
Hon. John Marshall Gest 
A. H. Geuting 
George Gibbs 
Hon. James Gay Gordon 
Arthur G. Graham 
Rev. W. F. Graham 
Frank G. Grier 
Paul Hagemans 
William Hall 
Victor J. Hamilton 
David M. Hanna 
William M. Hanna 
Rev. Alex. Hannum 
John M. Harper 
Thomas B. Harper 
Charles C. Harrison 
Herman Haupt 
Hon. George Henderson 
Hon. Bayard Henry 
Florence J. Heppe 
A. G. Hetherington 
Thomas L. Hicks 
Alfred Curtis Hirsh 
William Holland 
George F. Holmes 
Thomas J. Hunt 
Charles E. Ingersoll 
Dr. William Irwin 
J. Fred Jenkinson 
Moses G. Johnson 
Alba B. Johnson 
Wm. H. Jones 



Edward Keenan 

N. B. Kelly 

George Kimball 

David Kirschbaum 

Dr. George H. Kobler 

Hon. P. C. Knox 

Rabbi Krauskopf 

Dr. Wilmer Krusen 

Alexander Lawrence, Jr. 

William A. Law 

Charles H. Lea 

William Draper Lewis 

Ellwood C. Lindsay 

John C. Lowry 

J. J. Luis 

Rev. Alexander MacColl 

Richard T. McCarter 

James C. McDonald 

John J. MacDonald 

John H. McFadden 

William L. McLean 

John B. McMaster 

H. K. Mulford 

Spencer K. Mulford 

John T. Murphy 

W. H. Margerison 

Martin Maloney 

Hon. J. Willis Martin 

Louis A. Mata 

Dr. H. Brooker Mills 

C. D. Miller 

Leslie W. Miller 

Col. Robert L. Montgomery 

Dr. Philip Moore 

Alexander P. Moore 

Effingham B. Morris 

Royd Morrison 

Hon. Robt. Von Moschzisker 

J. F. Moss 



28 



Bishop Thomas B. Neely 

J. R. Neison 

William R. Nicholson 

Arthur E. Newbold 

Clement I>. Newbold 

Thomas K. Ober, Jr. 

Hon. George B. Orlady 

H. H. Pakradooni 

C. Stuart Patterson 

Hon. John M. Patterson 

Hon. Boies Penrose 

Evan T. Pennock 

George Wharton Pepper 

Andrew J. Pfaff 

Hon. Gifford Pinchot 

Fayette R. Plumb 

Gaetano Poccardi 

George D. Porter 

T. P. Porter 

John J. Prendergast 

Eli K. Price 

Evan Randolph 

Samuel Rea 

J. Stanley Reeve 

Alexander Van Renssalaer 

Agnes Repplier 

Bishop Rhinelander 

Rev. A. R. Robinson 

Frank L. Rau 

William M. Richardson 

Joseph M. Richie 

Charles A. Rittenhouse 

Thomas Robins 

P. F. Rothermel, Jr. 

Hon. Lewis S. Sadler 

J. K. Scattergood 

Reno Schoch 

Wilfred H. Schoff 

Hon. W. I. Schaffer 



Arch. K. Schoch 
Rev. C. C. Scott 
Mark Schoettle 
Coleman Sellers, Jr. 
Arthur W. Sewall 
Charles S. Schofield 
Thomas Shallcross, Jr. 
Hon. Alex. Simpson, Jr. 
Henry A. Sinnamon 
Lorenzo Smith 
Walter George Smith 
Provost Edgar F. Smith 
Hon. Thomas B. Smith 
Calvin M. Smyth 
Hon. William C. Sproul 
Joseph M. Steel 
W. H. Sterling 
Howard A. Stevenson 
Edward T. Stotesbury 
Robert M. Stinson 
Hon. Edwin S. Stuart 
Thomas D. Sullivan 
Joseph W. Swain 
Hon. Charlemagne Tower 
Ernest T. Trigg 
W. R. Tucker 
William T. Turner 
William Jay Turner 
E. A. Van Valkenburg 
Asa W. Vandergrift 
Hon. Edwin H. Vare 
Hon. William S. Vare 
Charles P. Vaughan 
Charles H. Van Tagen 
John A. Voll 
Philip S. Vollmer 
William Vollmer 
Charles Vuillenmier 
T. Henry Walnut 



29 



Hon. John Wanamaker 

Rodman Wanamaker 

Edwin S. Ward 

John Watt 

Capt. John M. Walton 

Hon. John Weaver 

Charles J. Webb 

Jacob Well 

George B. Wells 

L. P. White 

Mrs. J. William White 



Samuel S. White, Jr. 
Rev. R. J. Williams 
Joseph E. Widener 
O. D. Wilkinson 
William P. Wilson 
John C. Winston 
Dr. R. R. Wright, Jr. 
G. A. Wick 
Owen Wister 
E. A. Winner 
Joseph B. Woolston 



30 



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